[WikiEN-l] Harassment sites

[RLS]

On 10/19/07, Will Beback <will.beback.1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> So you're saying that if an editor is harassed by an outside group then
> the editor (and Wikipedia) should give in to that harassment. And you
> think that won't affect the POV of a topic? If a group succeeds in
> driving off one editor after another, how many thick-skinned editors are
> there willing to take their places?

I still fail to understand how removing links to a particular website
does anything except give [the group of Wikipedians advocating this
type of policy] an opportunity to claim the moral high ground.  It
does not harm that website to have their links removed.  It does not
make the harassment any harder for people to find, except by perhaps
adding the intermediate step of having to type the URL in by hand or
Google it -- all it does, in fact, is DRAW ATTENTION to the harassers
and the inappropriate material.  "Oooooh, XYZ website is harassing
Wikipedians! Let's take all their links away!" and what happens?
EVERYONE rushes to read it.  Why would you want to give the harassers
that kind of satisfaction?

As I mentioned before, if the harassment is more severe than just
inane blabbering on a webpage (personal info posted, threats of real
harm, etc etc), then report it to the police or the website's hosting
company or upstream carrier.  That's far more effective in getting the
content hidden or shut down than just unlinking it from en.wp.
Anything that *is* just inane blabbering, just freakin' ignore it and
they will go away.

--Darkwind